Green energy: Diageo orders scotch and biofuel cocktail

Simon Bowers
The Guardian,
Friday August 8 2008

Diageo, the market leader in scotch whisky, is to spend £65m on a bio-energy plant at its largest distillery in a move that will turn 90,000 tonnes of "spent wash" from the production process into steam and electrical power.
The drinks group, which makes Johnnie Walker, Bell's and J&B, believes the facility at its Cameronbridge distillery in Fife will be the largest single investment in renewable technology by a non-utility company in the UK. It says the plant will generate 6.5 megawatts of electrical power and 20MW of thermal power, which is enough to heat 12,000 homes.
Spent wash - a mixture of wheat, malted barley, yeast and water - is currently drained and sold to local farmers as wet cattle feed. The remaining liquid is piped out into the firth.
Once the new plant is operational, spent wash will be separated into liquid and solids. The liquid will be converted, through an anaerobic digestion process, into biogas. The dried solids form a biomass fuel. Together they will be used to provide 98% of the thermal steam and 80% of electrical power used at the distillery. The facility will also recover about a third of water requirements at Cameronbridge, Scotland's largest distillery.
The plant will take energy management company Dalkia two years to build.
Bryan Donaghey, managing director of Diageo Scotland, said the project had been drawn up two years ago as an environmental initiative with little financial benefit. But recent rises in gas prices are likely to result in savings. He was unable to say how long the investment would take to pay for itself.
Dr Mark Williamson, director of innovations at the Carbon Trust, said: "Nearly half of the UK's carbon emissions come from heating buildings and industrial processes. We need to urgently accelerate the adoption of biomass heating systems if we are to meet the government's 2020 renewables targets.
"We know the technology is mature and widely used in Europe but the challenge in the UK is to reduce costs, establish robust supply chains and drive widespread market uptake."
Diageo is also undertaking a £100m programme to boost production capacity in Scotland. This includes the first new malt distillery to be built in Scotland in 18 years, at Roseisle.